Psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the empathy quotient among Chinese minority college students

Background: When the minority college students from the ethnic minority communities come to study in Chinese Han region, they encounter adapting difficulties of culture and socio-psychology, in which empathy plays a crucial role. Current instruments used to measure empathy have many limited effectiveness. The empathy quotient (EQ) scale which has been validated in many countries was explicitly designed for clinical applications and was intended to be sensitive to a lack of empathy. This study is to develop a complete Chinese version of the EQ scale and to assess its reliability and validity among Chinese minority college students in the Han Chinese region. Methods: A total of 1638 Chinese minority college students in the Han region were selected and were randomly divided into two groups. One group of 818 students took part in the implementation of the exploratory factor analysis while the other group of 820 students participated in the confirmatory factor analysis. Results: Twenty-nine items of the EQ were retained based on the factor analysis and four factors were extracted: self-awareness, cognitive empathy, social skills, and emotional reactivity, which can explain 51.793% of the total variance. The factors of the EQ scale were significantly correlated with each other, with the correlation coefficient ranging from 0.316 to 0.563. The coefficient of internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) was 0.824 for the total scale and ranged from 0.640 to 0.818 for the subscales. Confirmatory factor analysis proved that the measured data fitted well with the hypothesized four-factor model. All of the items in the scale fitted the model well, and the point-measure correlation coefficient had acceptable consistency. Conclusions: The refined 29-item Chinese version of the EQ possesses good reliability and validity, and can be applied in assessing empathy among Chinese minority college students.